“You will need more,” Nadya said.
“How well I know that.” His face was grim. “Here goes.”
With short blasts on the maneuvering jets the tumbling through space slowed bit by bit until it finally stopped. The Earth, his only reference point, moved slowly into view in the ports ahead, the horizon sensors finally settling it into fixed position bisecting the window.
“Fuel reserves in maneuvering jets at seventy-one percent. That was wonderful, Patrick.”
“And the estimate was that we wouldn't need more than fifty to correct orbit. There's still a ball game.” He turned on the radio. “Hello Mission Control. Tumbling has been canceled and we are stable in orbit. Do you have a condition report on the core body engines yet?”
“Negative, Prometheus, But we have been running the programs through the computer and need more input before we will have them finalized. Are you ready for instructions?”
“Go ahead, Flax, but make it fast. I don't like this orbit and I want us out of it soonest.”
“Confirm. Activate your P20 to C64 and let us have a reading…”
While Patrick was testing the circuits and feeding the results to the computer, Nadya turned on the intercom and told the rest of the crew what was happening.
“Can we unstrap, Nadya?” Gregor asked. “Perhaps stretch a bit, move about. It is becoming claustrophobic in here.” There was a thin edge of tension in his voice, not quite panic yet, but the edge was there. The most exhaustive tests in the world are still just tests; space flight is the ultimate test and one that cannot always be completely prepared for. Nadya was aware of the difference in Gregor's voice and thought it best to ignore it for as long as possible.
“Please don't, Gregor. We may fire again at any moment and we will have to do it at the exact instant ordered by the computer programming. We could be badly hurt if we weren't strapped in.”
“And the food, Nadenka?” the Colonel asked. “You must hear my stomach grumbling up there.”
“Is that what it was, Volodya! I thought it was the rockets firing on their own.” Someone chuckled at her joke; no one really laughed. “The same goes for you, I'm afraid. As soon as we're in orbit we can do what we want.”
“But we're in orbit right now,” Coretta broke in. “Couldn't we stay here longer, what difference does it make? I'm sorry to be such an idiot.”
“We are in a low orbit,” Nadya told her. “Just on top of the atmosphere. And we were never intended to be in this orbit at all.”
“What would happen if we did stay here?” Coretta asked.
What indeed, Nadya thought. Is it a decaying orbit? How long will it last? They might need to know the answers very soon. But she pushed her fears aside and kept her voice calm. “Nothing much. If we stayed in this orbit we would just whistle around the world every eight-eight minutes. But we'll be out of it soon. Hold on, Patrick's signaling….”
“Commander here. The computer has digested all the info we have for it and produced what we think is an answer. One of the engines is definitely out of order and we have bypassed it and blocked it. We'll fire on the two opposing engines, two and four. Number one engine will be cut out as well so we'll have balanced thrust….”
“Will we get the proper thrust out of two?” Ely asked.
“Of course, Dr. Bron. We needed the full thrust of the four engines for lift-off, along with the thrust of the boosters. Now that we are in Earth orbit we will fire at lower thrust for a longer time and still get the same result.”
“No need to be clever, Patrick.” Ely was angry, his armor of cool cynicism penetrated for the first time. “I know as much about orbital mechanics as you do. I was talking about programming for the reduced thrust to get the correct final orbit. A program of this kind might take hours or even days to prepare.”
“I'm sorry, Ely, I shouldn't have said that. I'm damned tired, as we all are. You're perfectly right, of course. But one of the preparations in the past year was preparing programs for almost any eventuality. This was one of them — Mission Control is coming through now.”
Patrick killed the intercom and took the instructions from Mission Control. There was little he could do except watch because the computer was in control again. Readings and observations from Prometheus were coded by its own computer and radioed back to Earth. Either a relay station on the ground or one of the comsats would pick up the signal and bounce it on. Once the information had been digested the coded message would be sent back to the shipboard computer which would follow instructions.
“You will have ignition at 01:07:00,” Mission Control said.
“Roger. Check your straps, everyone, and get ready. The engines will fire in about two minutes, at 01:07 on your GET clock.”
The seconds ticked away, going too fast yet seeming to take an eternity. This had to be it. Seconds to go, three more, two, one…
He was ready, his body prepared for the thrust. But nothing, absolutely nothing happened.
“Come in, Mission Control. We do not have ignition.”
“Nothing at all?” There was unconcealed worry in Flax's voice.
“Not a fart in the engine or a light on the board. Do you know what you are doing, Mission Control?”
“Affirmative, Prometheus. Look, Patrick, we're doing our best down here. They're running the program through again for bugs, then we'll give you a new time and you can fire manually from there.”
“Thank you, Flax, I appreciate your concern. I am sure your people are working hard and sweating and getting ulcers. But they have solid ground under their feet and are not whipping around orbit. Do you have the data on this orbit yet?”
“Negative…”
“Flax! Shut up and listen to me, closely. You are lying. Your computer has digested enough orbital data to belch out an answer by now.”
“Your height is…”
“I know how high and how goddamn fast we're going. What I want to know is this a decaying orbit? How long are we going to hang up here before we hit the atmosphere and start slowing and drop back?”
“We can't be certain.. ”
“HOW LONG, FLAX?!”
“All right, Patrick, just take it easy. We have a figure here, but just a rough estimate so far. As we refine it we'll feed you the latest info. As of now with a possible seventy percent reliability the best we can say is that you have about thirty-six hours.”
“One day?”
Nadya was staring at Patrick, eyes wide, for she had heard too. He nodded slowly at her but knew better than to try to smile. He thought for long seconds before he spoke.
“Listen to this, Flax. We have to boost out of this orbit or we're going to turn into one more shooting star and burn up when we hit the atmosphere at the end of a day. Get those engines running. If they don't fire you better start your boys on the next possibility right away. We will need some figures on the chances of getting out of this orbit using the nuclear engine alone. We will drop the core body and fire on our own. Do you read me?”
“Loud and clear, Pat. We've already considered the nuclear engines and are running a program on it. A re you ready to try firing again?”
“Roger.”
“I'll read you the countdown and fire on zero. Ten. . nine…”
Nothing happened this time either and Patrick stabbed down again and again on the button until his thumb hurt. “All right, what's next?” he shouted. “Are you going to fix those engines or do we separate?”
“Separation in a few minutes. We want to be sure you will have enough time for running up the nuclear engine before separation.”